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17 September 2024

Zelenskyy’s power grab is bad for Ukraine

Jamie Dettmer

“Moving the chairs around.” That was a senior Ukrainian official’s take on the cabinet shake-up announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week.

So far, international and domestic media have largely echoed government spin on the matter, claiming this to be the biggest overhaul since Russia invaded Ukraine. But in truth, it isn’t much of a revamp at all. It’s simply a repositioning of some of the dramatis personae that’s been presented as something bigger than it is, the official said, asking to remain anonymous in order to speak more frankly.

“No fresh faces were added from industry, civil society or academia — something that’s been urged on the government for some time,” they noted. And that’s a problem.

The only exceptions to this are the forced departures of Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba and — independent of the cabinet reshuffle — the head of Ukraine’s national power transmission network Ukrenegro, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi. According to the official and other insiders interviewed by POLITICO, Kuleba had irritated Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who wants more control over the ministry.

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